On This Day 2026
Hello, … Welcome to day 25 of the year.

Sunday, January 25th

Today is National Opposite Day, National Irish Coffee Day, Burns Night and St. Dwynwen’s Day. Your star sign is Aquarius and your birthstone is Garnet.
1998 – Posh (Victoria Adams) and Becks (David Beckham) announced their engagement after dating for less than a year. They married the following year in July 1999 and had their first child, Brooklyn, shortly after the engagement.
Posh (Victoria Adams) and Becks (David Beckham) announced their engagement after dating for less than a year.
Famous deaths
2018 – Chas Hodges (b. 1943), English musician and singer. He was the lead vocalist, pianist and guitarist of the musical duo Chas & Dave.
Today’s birthdays
1949 – John Cooper Clarke (77), English performance poet and comedian who styled himself as a “punk poet” in the late 1970s, born in Salford, Greater Manchester.
1950 – Christopher Ryan (76), English actor (Mike ‘The Cool’ Person in The Young Ones, Dave Hedgehog in Bottom and Tony Driscoll in Only Fools and Horses), born in Bayswater, London.
1967 – David Ginola (59), French former professional footballer (Paris Saint-Germain, Tottenham Hotspur, Everton) and football pundit, born in Gassin, France.
1977 – Michael Brown (49), English former professional footballer (Leeds United) and football manager (Port Vale) who now works as a pundit, born in Hartlepool, County Durham.
1981 – Alicia Keys (45), American singer and songwriter (“Girl on Fire”, “Empire State of Mind”), born in Hell’s Kitchen, New York, United States.
1992 – Jordan Stephens (34), English singer, TV presenter and one half of Rizzle Kicks (“Mama Do the Hump”), born in Neasden, London.
Famous deaths
1947 – Al Capone (b. 1899), American gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the Chicago Outfit from 1925 to 1931.

2017 – John Hurt (b. 1940), English actor (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Elephant Man, Alien, V for Vendetta).

2022 – Barry Cryer (b. 1935), English writer and comedian who wrote for many performers including Tommy Cooper, The Two Ronnies, Les Dawson, Dick Emery and Kenny Everett.
The day today
1915 – Alexander Graham Bell in New York spoke to Thomas Watson in San Francisco, officially inaugurating the first transcontinental telephone service in the United States.

1919 – The founding of The League of Nations (French: Société des Nations) and forerunner of the United Nations. It was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace.

1924 – The world’s first Winter Olympics took place in Chamonix, France. Sixteen nations from across the world took part in the games, with Germany being banned from entering. It is generally accepted that the ban was due to the French occupation of the Ruhr and the Rheinland at the time.
1955 – Columbia University announced the development of a caesium-based clock that was able to accurately record time to the second, falling behind only one second every 300 years. That same year, a working model was built for the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, London.
1961 – Walt Disney’s animated classic, “101 Dalmatians,” was first released in theaters, becoming a huge box office hit and saving the studio financially, thanks to its innovative use of xerography animation which lowered production costs. It was a major success, leading to several theatrical re-releases and eventually spawning a successful media franchise, including live-action remakes.
1964 – Nike (originally called Blue Ribbon Sports) was founded by Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman, and officially became Nike, Inc. in 1971 after adopting its famous Swoosh logo and name (from the Greek goddess of victory). The iconic Nike Swoosh logo was designed by graphic designer Carolyn Davidson for just $35 (around £14.00 GBP back then). In 1983, Nike gifted her 500 shares of company stock to recognise her contribution.
1971 – Major General Idi Amin seized power in Uganda, deposing President Milton Obote and beginning an eight-year era of brutal military rule.
1971 – 170 delegates of the Ulster Unionist Council (UUC) called for the resignation of Northern Ireland’s Prime Minister, James Chichester-Clark, as he faced increasing pressure from hardline Unionists for not being tough enough on republican paramilitary violence, ultimately leading to his resignation in March 1971.
1972 – The first simultaneous kidney and pancreas transplant in Europe was performed by Mick Bewick at Guy’s Hospital in London. This procedure was part of early, experimental attempts to treat diabetes and kidney failure simultaneously.
1989 – Actor John Cleese won damages for libel at the High Court over an article in the Daily Mirror, which claimed he had become like Basil Fawlty in his comedy series Fawlty Towers.
1990 – The so called Burns’ Day Storm occurred on this day over north-western Europe, and was one of the strongest storms on record. It started on the birthday of poet Robert Burns, lasted for two days, caused widespread damage and was responsible for 97 deaths.
1995 – After being sent off in a Premier League match at Crystal Palace, Manchester United’s Eric Cantona launches a kung-fu attack on Palace fan Matthew Simmonds. He receives an eight-month ban from football.
1998 – Posh (Victoria Adams) and Becks (David Beckham) announced their engagement after dating for less than a year, at the Rookery Hall Hotel in Cheshire, famously wearing matching black turtlenecks for the press conference. They married the following year in July 1999 and had their first child, Brooklyn, shortly after the engagement.
2011 – The 2011 Egyptian revolution began after years of police brutality and corruption. The revolution, which saw countless violent clashes between protestors and President Hosni Mubarak’s government, took place over 17 days. Ultimately, the President stepped down, and the military took over until elections could be held.
2013 – Thorpe Park ordered experts to redesign its £20m new rollercoaster ‘The Swarm’, due to open on 15th March, after dummies lost limbs during dry run tests.
2016 – The British team known as the Coxless Crew made history by becoming the first all-female crew and the first four-person team to row unsupported across the Pacific Ocean, traveling from San Francisco to Cairns, Australia, in their 29-foot ocean rowing boat named “Doris”. The Journey of almost 9000 miles took 257 days.
Today in music
1963 – The Rolling Stones played at the Ricky Tick Club at the Star and Garter Hotel, Windsor, Berkshirehire, UK. This was the first time The Rolling Stones, including Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman, played at this venue. All the walls in the club were painted black and the lighting was made out of old ice-cream tins.
1964 – Phil Spector appeared as a panellist on this week’s UK TV show Juke Box Jury. The series featured celebrity showbusiness guests on a rotating weekly panel who were asked to judge the hit potential of recent record releases. By 1962 the programme was attracting 12 million viewers weekly on Saturday nights.
1964 – The Beatles scored their first No.1 best seller in the US when I Want to Hold Your Hand reached the top of the Cash Box Magazine music chart. ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ became the Beatles’ best-selling single worldwide, selling more than 12 million copies.
1975 – The last Sunbury Rock Festival in Victoria Australia was held. The promoters who had made heavy losses only paid Deep Purple. AC/DC were scheduled to play after Deep Purple but a fight started on stage between road crews after Purple’s set when they began packing up the lights and PA and denied AC/DC use of them, who then left the festival site without playing at all.
1978 – After changing their name from Warsaw, (inspired by the song Warszawa on David Bowie’s Low album), Joy Division made their live debut when they played at Pips Disco in Manchester, England.
1986 – Norwegian group A-Ha were at No.1 in the UK with ‘The Sun Always Shines On TV,’ becoming the first ever-Norwegian act to score a UK No.1 hit single. The track was released as the third single from their debut studio album, Hunting High and Low (1985).
2014 – Susan Boyle applied for a minimum wage, £6-an-hour cashier’s job after spotting a job advert in the window of her local bookmakers, Ladbrokes, in Blackburn, west Lothian. Upon reading the advert the singer who is said to worth over £20m entered the premises and spent around five minutes talking to the shop’s deputy manager David Corr about the role.
2020 – Scottish singer-songwriter Lewis Capaldi was at No.1 on the UK chart with his debut album Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent. The album featured the UK and US No.1 single ‘Someone You Loved’ which was the best-selling single of 2019 in the UK and received an award for Song of the Year at the 2020 Brit Awards. As of 2023, ‘Someone You Loved’ is the 3rd most streamed song on Spotify, with over 3 billion streams on the platform.
Today in history
41 AD – Claudius became the Roman Emperor unexpectedly after his nephew Caligula was assassinated, being discovered hiding and proclaimed by the Praetorian Guard, then accepted by the Senate, marking his start as the fourth Julio-Claudian emperor known for conquering Britain and restoring the economy.
1327 – The accession of King Edward III. During his long reign of 50 years (the second longest in medieval England) he transformed the country into one of the most formidable military powers in Europe and saw vital developments in legislation and government, in particular the evolution of the English Parliament.
1533 – The Bishop of Lichfield secretly married King Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn, the second of Henry’s six wives. She had, ten days previously, discovered that she was pregnant.
1554 – Sir Thomas Wyatt gathered an army of 4000 men in Kent at the start of his rebellion against Queen Mary. His fellow conspirators were timid and inept and he eventually surrendered. He was executed and his body ‘quartered’ on 11th April.
1759 – The birth of Robert Burns, Scotland’s national poet. He lived in Dumfries from 1793 until his death. His birthday is celebrated as ‘Burns Night’ by Scotsmen all over the world. Burns also collected folk songs from across Scotland, often revising or adapting them. His poem (and song) Auld Lang Syne is often sung on New Year’s Eve, or Hogmanay, as it’s known in Scotland.
1858 – Mendelssohn’s Wedding March was first played at the wedding of Queen Victoria’s daughter, Princess Victoria and Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia.